By now Phoebus’ sister had wandered o’er the torrid plains of Libya and chosen out superb lions who had often put the Hesperides to flight, filled Atlas with alarm at their wind-tossed manes, and plundered far and wide the flocks of Ethiopia, lions whose terrible cries had never struck upon the herdsmen’s ears but as heralding their destruction. To catch them had been used no blazing torches, no twigs strewn over turf undermined; the voice of a tethered kid had not allured their hunger nor had a diggèd pit ensnared them: of their own free will they gave themselves up to capture and rejoiced at being seen the prey of so great a goddess. At length the countryside breathes again and the Moorish farmers unbar their now safe huts. Then Latonia collected grey-spotted[19] leopards and other marvels of the south and huge ivory tusks which, carved with iron into plaques and inlaid with gold to form the glistening inscription of the consul’s name, should pass in procession among lords and commons. All India stood in speechless amaze to see many an elephant go shorn of the glory of his tusks. Seated upon their black necks despite their cries the goddess shook the fixèd ivory and tearing it up from its bloody roots disarmed the monstrous mouths. Nay, she fain would have brought the elephants themselves as a spectacle but feared that their vast weight would retard the ships. Fiercely o’er the Tyrrhene wave echoes the fleet [19] Literally “green.” Latin (and Greek) colour epithets are often strangely at variance with ours. * * * * * Page 68 classis torva[20] sonat, caudamque in puppe retorquens ad proram iacet usque leo: vix sublevat unum tarda ratis! fremitus stagnis auditur in imis cunctaque prosiliunt cete terrenaque Nereus 360 confert monstra suis et non aequare fatetur. aequora sic victor quotiens per rubra Lyaeus navigat, intorquet clavum Silenus et acres adsudant tonsis Satyri taurinaque pulsu Baccharum Bromios invitant tympana remos: 365 transtra ligant hederae, malum circumflua vestit pampinus, antennis inlabitur ebria serpens, perque mero madidos currunt saliuntque rudentes lynces et insolitae mirantur carbasa tigres. [20] _torva_ Birt; MSS. have _turba_. * * * * * Page 69